Choice hardwood lumber has significant value in many industries, including furniture and cabinet making. Such lumber may be milled from choice trees, having sufficient size and features to allow boards of adequate size to be milled from the tree. The type of tree itself is significant, as different types of trees yield differing coloring and grain. Pricing for the wood varies based on the wood type, such that some trees yield wood having significant value.
Logging operations are able to yield large quantities of wood, however typically require large and extensive machinery in order to harvest large volumes of timber, much of which is other than suitable for milling choice hardwood lumber, such as walnut and cherry boards. Choice hardwood lumber is often obtained on a single log basis, i.e., one particular tree is found which will yield choice hardwood lumber. Accordingly, the use of large and expensive equipment to retrieve single logs is not cost effective, and limit the ability of individual woodworkers and small operations from harvesting logs from which to mill choice hardwood lumber.
Logs from which choice hardwood lumber can be milled are typically several feet long, and of a large enough diameter that individuals are unable to easily load such logs onto a truck to retrieve the log from where it is found, and move it to a location where it can be milled. Such logs often weigh several hundred pounds, and accordingly, different methods of loading such logs into the bed of a pick up truck, frequently available to individual woodworkers, may use a frame to form an overhead crane to lift the logs, such as that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,712 and allow a truck to be backed under the log, at which point the log may be lowered onto the bed of the truck. Obviously, such structure is inefficient in that it must be transported to a site where a log has been found, removed from the truck and set up for lifting a log, used to load the log into the bed of the truck, then broken down and placed back into the truck, which now also has the loaded log or logs also in the bed. Other methods, such as using a jib crane such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 8,479,933 have also been used, and which while removing the set up inefficiencies, are limited in load capacities by having to be mounted at a corner of the truck bed to allow clearance for the log being lifted, resulting in high local loads, and imbalancing of the truck onto which the jib crane is mounted.
Accordingly, there is a need for the ability of small wood harvesting operations, such as those associated with choice hardwood lumber, to be able to load choice logs onto the bed of a truck in a safe and efficient manner.